The Dimmed Isle
by Consarn
Summary: The Isle of Light was once known as a paradise beyond the wildest of dreams. Time has moved on since then. Ferals, vicious pokémon bent on death, crawl forth from the black ocean that surrounds the Isle and entraps its few surviving prisoners. When the sun itself begins to dim over the land, how can fate - the very thing that stripped the Isle of its beauty - be used to save it?
1. 1: Tomorrow, today

**The Dimmed Isle**

**-One-**

**==Tomorrow, Today==**

His arm, holstered in the leather on his side like a sword, started to twitch, and he wasted no time drawing it out to work with it, to quickly hogtie the supports of his treehouse, to watch his sallow claw grip the wood, to weather the storm, to survive another disaster, and to already wonder towards the next tragedy. Children always wondered towards the next Delibird's Eve, _on _Delibird's Eve, which made sense to the combusken now. The distance of time between tomorrow and a year later didn't matter to runts, and why would it? There was no contest for the two; for the combusken, he'd rather look forward to a familiar _today_ one year later than a new threatening _tomorrow_, tomorrow. Nowadays, the Dimmed Isle experienced its fair share of disastrous days while he feared - enough to render his left arm lame again, tense as the coarse rope he dropped - that he would soon run out of _tomorrows_. If he could somehow spend a ton of _tomorrows _as _todays_, then maybe he'd live longer. Keep the Relay safe longer.

But Atlasans weren't allowed to hope. They were allowed to finish binding the post to the best of their ability and to turn their head when master called them, hiding their exhaustion. It embarrassed him that he had nearly let the young thing catch him hoping instead of doing.

"Hellingly, are you doing alright down there?" Then he said, before the combusken could respond: "I'm coming down. Don't even try to complain."

"No! You wouldn't help me!" He hadn't meant to snap. The storm roared above, its loudness varied. All he accomplished was stopping the Relay for an instant. The young thing withdrew a dainty paw for a second while he twisted his maw into an injured expression. Father'd kill Hellingly if he ever saw him act that daintily. Father'd also kill him for allowing another pokémon to be so dainty under his guidance. _But it's easier this way,_ he swore under his breath as the Relay fell through the trap door - hastily built to avoid the wetness outside - and plopped into the mud.

The shaymin shook the mud off but couldn't quite shake a dumb grin. Or get his dainty paws out of the goop. "Yuck, I've heard of sticking the landing, but getting _stuck_ in the landing? That's new."

_It's easier to go it alone_, he swore again, as if the wind was his father's wrathful spirit. And then he just swore out loud. His limp arm flopped around uselessly, shooting up at every gust of wind.

"Half of our treehouse is close to collapsing back into the earth," he responded finally, with a wan smile. "Hey... that's a bit like your sense of humor, Glee."

Glee dissolved out of sentient speak, yapping his approval. _I found that, funny! _He cried in his simple growl. _Combusken is, funny! _

It certainly wasn't the most hilarious joke in all the Isle, but Glee's childish voice sold it so well, Hellingly nearly ran for a quill and paper to save it for any passing gatherers. The roof leaked water onto the floor, and the water pooling on the leaky floor sloshed down on them both, pressing the Relay's head-fur into his lit eyes as he laughed. Just another _today_, he figured. Based on his desperation, on Glee's infectiously warm mood, and on the day likely ending with them cuddled together in the sturdiest corner of their humble tree. What a relief. Father'd kill him for thinking so. But, Arceus, what a _relief.__  
_

Finally, Glee clawed his way out of growl-speak. "A little help getting out?" He asked his servant. Hellingly loyally tugged the gentle creature from the mud, constantly stricken by the thought of breaking the Relay with his roughness. "Oh, I hope it didn't go too deeply under my paws."

"What did I tell you about that word?"

"Whazzat?"

"The _H_ word, Glee. Did you come down here to _hope_ the crack out of the beam?" The beam, speaking of which, needed another knot pressed against its dying base. He wouldn't utter a word of it to Glee, but it was crumbling away tonight. It wasn't his first dance with the structure, so he knew when his partner was dragging their feet. But they'd be safe. He'd cook up something special and they'd wait patiently in the sturdiest corner. Like the fireworks in Solace on Delibird's Eve, he promised Glee months ago when it last happened, tons of _cracks_. Another _today, _he'd mutter to himself, while he left the young pup to wonder how the next _today_ with a crumbling home might be.

While he pressed into the beam with his good arm and led the dance, Glee sobered up completely. "I promised you that I'd be your left arm," he said, loud enough in the storm's lull to be a shout. To prove it, he nudged the combusken's dangling limb back into its holster. "You're my Atlasan, I'm your Relay." That was a new one - a new way for Glee to be closer to him. Also, a new way to relieve the responsibility of having a life dedicated to him. For one or both of those reasons, Hellingly squashed the idea.

"I'm your Atlasan. _You _are the Isle of Light's Relay."

The wind died down. Then, sudden fear rose in its place.

The scent of it slammed into Hellingly. No inner-strength could stop him from freezing. The taut rope ripped away from his claws, pitch screaming upwards as it slithered across them. Had he intimidated the Relay? No, not this much. Not like the scent-heavy shaymin had seen Giratina raise from the ground. He deftly leaped away from his crippled beam and gripped Glee, the more important broken thing by far.

And when he followed the shaymin's small muzzle with his eyes, he saw it. A pokémon, no gatherer from the village he'd met before. It milled about the underside of their home blindly. It didn't say a word in either sentient or growl-speak.

He looked harder, and started to breathe roughly. He stood only five arm-lengths from a lairon, as might and as dangerous as a great furnace. its steel-plated body slicked off the water easily. It trickled down its bellowing sides and reminded Hellingly of his family, youngest brother, eldest sister, father, all trickling down the back of their humble field inside Harmony as they fled. It was the only time father ever retreated, and the only time he ever had a reason to, but they were hunted down regardless. Perhaps if father taught him to retreat, he would have lived without needing to play - _be_ - dead. Fragments of a flailing, mad beast filled his head, first over his mother in her extra-comfy bundle - for the coming whelp, he recalled, for the whelp - then over himself in the flaming field. The light of a hooked torch flickering dimly on its black hide caused him to remember that part vividly. Yet the monster actually conveyed one concrete thing only, which Hellingly knew intimately: it conveyed its ferality. His chest and left arm throbbed angrily as if asking, _what are you doing? Get away from it, idiot! _His chest sounded like pa. The arm: Glee, probably because of what the shaymin said earlier. He couldn't lie; fear crawled over him like a thousand tiny spiders.

The small shaymin trembled as he spoke. "Hellingly, it's huge." Obviously. "I-It's the monster from your stories." As he, or anyone sane should think of them. "It'll pound my chest and make me cough up blood." Dainty red spray. "It'll crush my limbs like your own." That was two left arms disabled, he thought morbidly. Father'd kill him for stupidly agreeing to tell Glee about that day. He had more descriptions by the combusken, but he fell into a repetition of muttering _it'll_ followed by a light whimper. _I'm old enough to know,_ Glee had promised. This only proved that he wasn't.

"Hellingy, I t-think I might..."

Hellingly snapped out of his trance, suddenly conscious of their situation. "Don't wet yourself," he said slowly. It wasn't a bitter remark; the earthy scent of mud covered the ground, and the storm muffled out any stray noise. That gave them an advantage, because it meant the only way to be detected was by sight. If Glee let himself go, though, it'd pass down the slope towards the lairon. It'd know by the strong scent that it was time, time for a feral to victimize another child. All of Glee's _it'll it'll it'll_'s would come to life.

Hellingly couldn't fight well enough in the damp, not with beast as his opponent. He wasn't getting trampled again, he determined weakly, despite that. The fear bubbled back, fear he absorbed from the Relay. Infectious warmth, infectious fear. He had sworn a minute ago that he wanted it that way, the pup kept weak. The female from Harmony, which he once resented then loved to call mother, would want her son to be kept delicate. _Atlas claimed victory over the Isle but not over fine manners_, she'd say. _What was pa thinking when he chose you as his prize_, he'd say, all in a bluster.

"I'm gonna," the child whispered. "It'll, it'll, it'll... I'm gonna..." he did. A little bit, until Hellingly slapped the top of his head. Guilt washed over him immediately.

"Don't you dare, Glee, don't you dare," he begged frailly. His squishy mind wanted to hope. His rough body wanted to do. Mind won. In an instant he hoped a thousand things through his open flood gates, rendering him useless. He looked over to his half-brother. "Please." A nasty word. It left the recipient's actions up to chance. Not to good old _can _or _can't -_ it was left to the lethal _may _or _may not._

The shaymin had adorned a kind of power, however, prevailing against the _it'll's_, calm as that wretched lairon. When he saw that look, a weight lifted off of the combusken's shoulders. The Relay's stoicism, Hellingly referred to it as, since he'd never associate the rare stance with anything else. "I'm your left arm," he whispered beneath the storm. "Steady now." He steadied. In moments like this, it was all Glee could do to get noticed by his protector. To remind him that these weren't his problems alone.

The Relay's stoicism had another purpose, or rather, sometimes was Glee's only purpose. If he didn't have the ability to dig his dainty paws into the mud and yelp obdurately, for the sake of relaying things, what would he be but an incompetent child? Mother would have pointed out the rareness of his breed, the rarest combination of smooth with raw, inner growth with inner fire. _What was pa thinking_, he'd shout jokingly, quietly believing her, after seeing Glee's fiery strength. Strength which couldn't possibly fit normally into that dainty body.

The Relay's stoicism had another purpose, alright, and it frightened Hellingly. More than the lairon stumbling away into the rain, to their treehouse's front door, which shook him to the core. This hit him right in the soul - and that hardly made sense to the combusken. He realized that today wasn't a _today, _and it wasn't just any _tomorrow:_ it was the _tomorrow_ than ensured there would be no more _todays_. The beginning of time moving on, and his numbered days spilling away as water from their leaking roof.

It hit him right in the soul, because Glee said, "it's the Listener, I'm sure of it." And to needlessly clarify, "the feral who knows what to do with my messages. Did you notice him walking into our home? He's waiting for me, Hellingly, I can feel it." And to needlessly soften the blow, "I'm sorry. I'd choose otherwise, if I could."

He couldn't decide what was more likely. His father and his sick humor had carried a lairon on the stormy wind to toy with him, or that the Relay had found a listener in the one monstrosity his crippled body quaked around. If this was Glee's trial as Relay, he lamented, why should it seem like his? Or theirs? He knew already: _m__y Atlasan, Your Relay. My trial, your nightmare. Two half-brothers together a full-brother, blood shared wholly. _

Father'd kill him for becoming too involved, regardless of bloodlines.

Father'd cheer him on, afterwards. For leading his half-brother like enchanted livestock, bred by a willing prisoner and the warrior that conquered her home, in a battle against the slaughterhouse of fate. He'd get a whoop for scrounging around for a purpose for them both, after fate years ago left Hellingly twitches away from death throes, Glee wailing in the hay for a parent or sibling to feed him. One was crippled, yet not broken. The other was timid, but never a coward. Atlasan poetry at its finest.

Maybe, he'd discover why he had to lose everyone and nearly a piece of himself. Maybe all the days, _todays _or _tomorrows_, would finally have a sweeping meaning that explained it all.

Then he shut his hope-faucet off and released the shaymin. "Let's go through with it, then." The lairon might or might not (how he _hated_ those words) decipher how to change fate; interesting stuff, but nothing to be hoping about.

After the lairon revealed the way to change fate, they could finally succeed or fail at saving the Isle of Light from apocalypse, its inhabitants from extinction. Rough going, sure, but at least it was a _can _or _can't_ deal.

And father'd kill him if he couldn't.


	2. 2: Listener to Many Voices

**The Dimmed Isle**

**-Two-**

**==Listener to Many Voices==**

Clement the lairon hadn't wandered into their room to play around with Glee's premonitions; he did it because it was warmer inside and he had finally figured out what that warmness passing by his feet was. The culprit, a bewildered whelp, entered right after him. He didn't even offer an apology. Just jostled his fur in anticipation of whatever he wanted to do.

Behind him was the taller one, a beaked beast. Its body was peculiar - long claws protruded from either hand and his entire body shared this unguicular form, a naturally honed weapon from head to toe. A warrior of a long-gone time, if Clement seen one. When he spoke to the wiry one, it was in a long, sturdily accented drawl. _Wait for me to finish,_ it said to Clement. The combusken - he figured it was one, somehow - sounded years older than he probably was. Not that it mattered much on its own. Put it beside the brown hide of his arm's holster and its fragrance of good care, though, and an accent like his was no act. It represented experience, not age; he was a little chick more buffeted by life than the rest, so he fell from his comfy nest a little too early. Left aware of what skills he needed, but not having them, a done-and-done case. Something ought to have crushed this chick, Clement concluded. The combusken himself knew this, yet he kept his leather polished and hid among the rows and rows of other things: the things that should be dead but aren't. _Welcome to the club,_ Clement found himself thinking crudely.

Not knowing his name, nor caring to ask, Clement dubbed him as _the Drawl_ and went back to finding a spot to rest.

He sought out the place of most rigidity, then the one of most warmth after he found the most rigid to also be the most cold, then merrily compromised for the corner of the little treehouse. Plopping down bothered the combusken, but put a little steel in the bedwetter. Not the _bedwetter_, Clement reasoned, the _shaymin_. A bedwetting shaymin, to be precise.

The shaymin was a different case from his drawling friend. Instead of life simply telling him _whoops, I sort of missed killing ya, _he was still naive enough to believe any old grand tale told to him. And whatever higher purpose the shaymin found in being alive, well, it had to be a real doozie. His head kept level with the lairon, even so Clement was half-sure parents told their kids to never make eye contact with a beast like him. A nervousness blossomed in Clement the longer the shaymin watched him. The stare dug under the steel shell on Clement's outside and scooped him out like a crab feasting on a shellfish. No whelp should be able to see through someone quite like this shaymin could.

"That's our spot," the bedwetter said. Clement figured it wasn't anymore. It turned out to be a conversational remark - an icebreaker. "Did you know that we, Hellingly and I, built this place all on our own? We, uh, we have our own little holiday - I call it 'Spring Crashing'. We sit in the corner while the Winter storms destroy our treehouse. And a little spot opens up, and it's like the Spring has crashed in. I can pollinate flowers in Spring, so its my favorite season, since when I pollinate enough I can bestow xanadu over small places..." _what the hell? _Clement wanted to growl at the strange thing. The bedwetter went from breaking the ice, to exclaiming how good it felt to commit zoophily on Springtime flowers and _bestow xanadu._ Was he supposed to understand any of that? Maybe as a pokémon, he was.

Clement nearly said something caustic, along the lines of _I don't have any milk for you, whelp, get out of my space. _For once, though - for once, _for once_... he felt a kind of ecstasy not yet experienced by any one of the three in three treehouse. Pure, adulterated success, all at keeping his maw shut. If the shaymin had taken a close look, he would have seen the lairon quaking with pleasure. _Yeah!_ Clement cheered even while grabbing back onto the reigns of his own body. _Words are just trumpery. Build them up into the most meaningful folly, there's always a pisser with wild dreams ready to crush it to smithereens. Pissers think what they want of you, Clement, so why even start? All this time wondering why they always expected so much, and all it took was a little dying to get your answer! Words are trumpery, words are just-_

Whatever Clement bode within that steel shell, who broke ground by refusing to speak, departed alongside the next gust of wind. Only Clement the lairon, happy to chew his tongue and let these two pokémon decide what came next, remained alone in the large husk. His most stubborn memory - standing lonely at his 'stop' in a pearly gray cave, tumbling down and grasping at a dark cave that had sucked up the giant metal beast holding his pack - popped and oozed like an unsightly cyst. A large chunk beyond the memories remained, but it was coiled in the back of his mind, a viper waiting for the right time to strike.

This was Clement's experience then. To the Drawl, the lairon looked like a shuddering idiot.

"Try ta' growl-spek." The combusken fondled every part of Clement with his eyes, considering this new problem like he would a broken wagon. He hated to make the effort, except for the thrill of seeing Clement fixed. "Hays a fear-uwl. You have ta' spek their wey."

Out of the blue, the shaymin started to bark at him. At first Clement thought it was a territorial sort of thing, until something amazing happened: he actually translated the yelps. It was as natural as breathing: the growl's first pitches led with the object, and the final bark pinched it off and communicated the important part. _Shaymin is, curious,_ the shaymin barked, _can lairon, speak? _He opened his maw to see if lairon could speak, excited about the prospects.

He let out the tiniest moan, then stopped. He could do it, but didn't feel like speaking 'growl-spek' either. "Ar-coose," the Drawl cursed. "Demb bastard's egnorin us." Clement noticed that he said the good old _B_ word just fine. Probably had a lot of experiences with Clement, and other 'demb bastards', which wore him out so much one of his arms started flopping from stress one day.

Panicky went from excited to dejected in seconds flat. Suddenly, he perked right back up, turning to the Drawl. "Don't ferals attack on sight? Yes, they definitely do; remember last year? I mistook that feral noctowl as a sentient. It cawed _hoo_, so I went over and I asked, _who, who?_ Then it nearly tore my throat out. You aren't going to tear my throat out, are you?" It would have been coy from any other maw, but the shaymin honestly wanted to know. It was so laughably polite - with a hint of charming, in the subtlest of ways. Clement smiled politely at Panicky. "Either way, I wanna explain. Maybe he doesn't know what he can do, or needs a bit of context to start with."

"I kin 'member that... it is na' a normal fear-uwl, far as I kin tell. I'm about done weth it, though, so one more go, then ye 'low me to gout 'im." _Gout_, hopefully as in_ combusken slang word for providing hospitality_.

The spiel that followed supplanted the fantasy of Panicky's railing on xanadu: "My name is Glee, and this is my brother Hellingly. We came from different mothers, so he has a better claim than I do, to being an Atlasan. Who invaded the Isle of Light a decade ago - the Dimmed Isle is the newer name, because it, well, dimmed. A lot of pokémon blame Atlasans for the ocean becoming black and the sun dimming, because its a punishment for their greed. But the Atlasans were suffering in Atlas, and really wanted the Isle of Light to help them-"

"That's na' important," Hellingly muttered. "The pol-itticks matter none to 'im."

"O-oops. Anyway, the gods of the world speak through me." _Well then,_ Clement thought as he jolted out of a sleepy daze. _That's a leap from territorial disputes. _"They warn me about when tragedy will strike. A-and I go to the aftermath... where I invoke xanadu over the bodies to prevent the cultivation of suffering. You see, when too many pokémon suffer in one place on the Isle, it increases the likelihood of a Punishment forming. In Atlas, they'd call them Mystery Dungeons. Packs of ferals erupt from them on occasion. When they do, all they want to do is slaughter. I receive a message from the gods, Hellingly writes it down, then we go over to prevent the Punishment from forming.

"This all makes sense, I hope."

"Hey!" Hellingly barked angrily. "He will na' respec' ye if ya' say that word." Clement wanted to laugh; the combusken hated the word 'hope'. How _fitting_, in a world of Punishment and black oceans. It was almost cliché. A sensation of dread flooded his passive state. What had fate whisked him into?

"I want to do more than invoke xanadu!_" _Glee shouted, frustrated. "Every time I purify the places in the gods' messages... I feel sadder and sadder. It's like I'm trying to breathe, just do something natural, but I must cough through all this miserable tar in my lungs, all for a teeny _wheeze_. It doesn't matter if I want to be happy or not... I'm wilting regardless of how I want to feel..." then he grinned from ear to ear, cocking his head to the left. "But you're the Listener. Two years ago, when I underwent a great change, the gods gave me my happiest message. It was so warm and joyful, it left me tingling for days afterward. First they sent me a dream of flight, then told me that a feral would emerge from the ocean and find me. _You will find the Listener when you are older, _they said, _and he will give you the power to change the fate you are prisoner to. _From now on, with you by my side, we'll do more than purify. We'll save everyone before they-"

A dormant cold forced a sneeze into Clement's nose. His sneeze thundered through the room, spraying Glee with stray snot. Had the sneeze surfaced to protect Clement from this responsibility? Or did he care that little for the wilting shaymin? Glee backed away timidly, ears flopped down. He wiped the sneeze out of his eyes, like a broken child rubbing his eyes until he woke up from a dream. "O-oops," his wavering voice squeaked, grasping at his idea of a Listener. "Bless you. W-w-where was I?"

"I don't know what he's about," the Drawl growled (Clement couldn't bear the burden of sifting through that accent, so he let his mind do so naturally. All things conisdered, it was better this way). "But he's no listener. I'll take care of him, Glee. You wait outside on the ramp."

_Uh oh._ Didn't sound like the taking care of where Clement received lots of food and drink. Seemed more like the combusken wanted to put him down. As an act of good faith - also to avoid gibbering fearfully - he rolled on his side, maneuvering around the natural cuffs on his legs, so he could bare his throat to the killer. He went _thumpathumpathumpa _when the Drawl glibly complemented how easily the lairon accepted death. It felt like revenge, and Clement felt forcefully put on the stand. He hadn't done anything. The clean claw brushed the soft hide above the heart, ready to jab. He growled defiantly.

Luckily, thank _ar-coose_, Glee knocked him away. "No!" He shouted happily. "This is him! Why would a listener talk back, Hellingly, if he's supposed to listen? He listened to it all! I know he did!"

Why would Glee lie to protect him? Clement wanted desperately to know. Why would this Relay save the lairon after he sneezed all over his dreams? On his one chance at feeling less sad?

_He really doesn't know how, _Clement realized with a jolt. That last thought was so alien, like his sneeze had knocked it into place. It was harsh and self-critical, yet extremely familiar. And comforting. _He doesn't know how to give up, or in, or give any kind of thing other than his all. What were you sneezing on him for, you ass? You deserve to be gutted, dumbo! _It was meant to be a playful chastisement, but Clement felt guilty that he thought so little of himself.

"You're seeing what you want to see." The Drawl sounded more dogged by the moment. "Move aside so I can..." he didn't even have a verb for what he wanted to do to hapless Clement. _Thumpathumpa._

"Avenge our family on some random lairon? Who happens to be the _listener?"_

"It isn't him." It sounded like denial.

"Yes, it is! And even if you're somehow right, I can't sit about in this treehouse anymore - I hate how the walls fall away all the time! I hate not being near others!" _Someone _didn't like

The Drawl's rebuttal came out awkward and hesitant, as if he hadn't much experience arguing back at the shaymin. "Who asked for this?! _You did!"_

_"_The treehouse was your idea, I wanted to live in the village-" his eye shot forward. Clement tried to find what he stared at, but couldn't. "Hellingly, the quill. It's happening." He sucked in air hungrily. In, out, then held in his swelled chest. He looked like an insolent child, holding his breath until he could have things his way. Hellingly saw an insolent child as well. The bird scowled and waited while his pal slowly began to sway, his chest likely burning with a need to breathe again.

Instead of grabbing the quill, he squawked out harsh laughter, devoid of amusement. "Don't lie for this monster's sake! It's just pathetic."

Hellingly sucked in air too, but released his in a piercing cry. _For this monster do not, lie! _He demanded it, his fury shaking the foundations. But if Glee really was faking something, he performed admirably; ignoring the Drawl's tantrum, twitching, eyes clenching shut, face twisting with a pain that wouldn't allow him to respond with a cry of his own; something had possessed the child. If nothing happened soon, Clement could see the shaymin's oxygen-starved mind snapping like a twig under his forepaw. Clement relaxed as the combusken finally apologized and ran across the room for a quill and paper. He rolled back onto his large gut and smiled politely at the Drawl.

The Drawl noticed and held the quill out like a holy symbol. "You _better _listen! You damned better if you want to live!" Wind whipped through the room to accent his firmness.

He twisted around to Glee, who started to roar with a ferocity obviously not from his own body, the foundations shaken by the combusken were suddenly sheared by the force of its power. If Glee growl-spoke in short sentences, and Hellingly a bit longer, Clement somehow received an entire world from the wavering of this roar, its pitches pouring in through his head and filling out his eyes:

_An hour almost makes its way by peacefully, but what happens must happen, so it snags on the note of a screaming girafarig. She and her knight start at his shouts, running outside of the tent in time to see the girafarig skinned like trees he harvests for his medicine. A pack of ferals swarm him before the second shout ever arrives. The shock of it all courses through them both, so electrifying she hardly notices the bloom of a tightening pain in her stomach. Rope herds her inside, but she saw enough to discover that the blitzle has lied; her lover hasn't returned. She claws at him, then at the ground leading to the door of the tent's entrance, howling with the depraved laughter of a doomed animal. She sees the final destination in the darkness of the tent. All those sacrifices for nothing... ha ha ha, she caws as it became time to introduce another to such a funny world. What an Isle! What a place! Ha, ha, ha... this is called,_

Clement nearly allowed himself to breathe, but then the final note of the roar came.

_The Almost Lover_

Even Hellingly nearly laid down his quill, before Glee breathed in and started anew:

_H-hello? _The gods asked in a squeaky yelp.

Clement cocked his head. _Hello to you too, gods, _he projected at Glee's gaping maw, now sleeked in a film of frothy saliva. Could he see who was on the other side, by staring down into the tiny black hole? _Don't be an idiot, _the harsh part of him insisted. _Arceus isn't hiding in Glee's gullet with a nokia taped to his head. This is bonafide, authentic magic._ The roar rose back to full volume before Clement could wonder what the voice meant by the word 'nokia'.

_...Fear in the air. Glee too young to know the scent. Truly defenseless this child in a forest of ferals. Buries pokémon, one by one. Hung up on the eleventh grave. A furfrou shrieks at him about the eleventh grave. The eleventh grave is Glee's fault. Eleventh grave is very important. Eleventh grave eleventh grave eleventh grave eleventh grave. Eleven eleven eleven eleven eleven. Shrieking Furfrou and Eleven or you die... it is called,_

Clement waited this time for the title.

_The End of the Relay_

Glee held some awareness of his words, because he flopped down and began to cry. Not in intelligible growl speak. Simple wimpy whelp wails were all they were.

Somewhere in that mystic episode, the entire front half of the treehouse had collapsed. Clement bleakly thanked his own sagacity; the spot that was very rigid yet too cold had disappeared into the debris down below. The treehouse's corpse groaned at its disembowelment, likely cursing its owners as it fell away into the earth, possessions and carpentry slipping away like innards. A sick comparison, but Clement felt decidedly sick himself. _Too much laying about, _the voice chastised. _Lazy ass._

Then he inspected the forest above the corpse. It was full of sprite-like playfulness, its emerald leaves sparkling and giggling at the pokémons' little accident, hiding the storm behind its back like a common vagrant. It skewed to the left and the right. It was a motion that was nauseating to experience, amazing to witness, and fascinating for Clement to study. Light bespangled the air in front of them with glittery motes of the dust that once stuck to the wood.

"I'm going to die," Glee said with a note of finality. "The End of the Relay. The premonitions always come true."

"Not if I can help it," Hellingly responded, not having any of it. "Not if _he_ can help it." Clement continued to watch the forest as they waited. "Well," he commanded, his voice breaking, "do it! Change his damned fate!" _Damned_ was a good word for it, Clement noted. "You heard him! We've got to do what it says or my brother dies!" The voice added, _and he'll kill us too, if you mess this up. I don't think either of us want that, huh? So get up! Break time's over!__  
_

Clement hefted himself up and took a few choice steps forward. The lairon didn't know a lick about fate-changing, but he really did think that the forest in front of him was nice.

"Lovely forest," he grunted - his first words as a lairon. It fitted to the forest outside of the four cracked walls of the treehouse like a title to a dreamy painting. An idea popped into his lazy mind, pushing him to request: "Help me find that camp." _R-really_? His voice asked, stunned. _Good for you, Clement._

The only way to go was out, so he did that much himself while Glee nervously laughed. "I k-knew it. He's the Listener. What will we do in the forest, Listener? Will you stop the ferals?" _Will you save me? _The shaymin truly asked.

_Well, you gonna make up for snubbing him or not? _The voice echoed.

He grunted. Clement hadn't asked to go to the village because he wanted to change fate. He asked because the village seemed quaint enough - quaint like him - and he was hungry and sneaked a peek at a food storage beyond the eleventh grave Glee raved (roared) on and on about. _For crying out loud, you fat husk! I, Clement,_ the obnoxious voice hinted,_ want to go the camp because..._

If it happened that he could stop the happy shaymin and his uppity pal from getting hurt, Clement supposed it couldn't hurt to protect them. Besides; it was his first few moments as a lairon, and he needed some adventure to muse on during his lazy days.

So he decided to take his entourage for a little walk. _Attaboy! This will be great, I love adventure. You do too, you're just too dumb to notice._

_I love food, _Clement argued, trying to reclaim full control over himself. _Who are you?_

The voice snickered at him. _Usually I'm not this apparent, so I remain unnamed. You, however, can call me Explorer. Why? So you and your thick head will know exactly what it's dedicated to, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week: exploring. I've had enough of doing things your way._

So much dedication sounded like a nightmare to the lazy lairon. He huffed loudly enough to catch Glee's attention. The shaymin shot him a concerned glance. _My way? Just what do you think you are?_

_Well, Clement, I'm your spirit. And because of this colossal screwup you likely caused, you'll be seeing me around far more than you're used to._

He huffed again, fuming. _Fantastic.__  
_


	3. 3: The Almost Lover

**Author's note: For those of you who read the not-edited chapter one, Glee's premonition (that segment in italics about graves) has been edited for plot consistency. And to be less stupid. I do think that being stupid is in my fate (get it? Because my story is about fate) and I acknowledge that my story is a huge investment, and one that might not be worth taking, but I'll always try my best for those of you who do. Pinkie promise.**

**The Dimmed Isles**

**-Three-**

**==The Almost Lover==**

Clement's arrival might have spawned a thousand questions for the 'Drawl' and the Relay. But there was one more to be introduced to the pot, since changing fate was new to them all and it was instinctive to lick the loose tooth, figuratively the shaky tooth of _fate_, instead of pulling it out. At the camp imminently a cemetery (revealed by the more professional premonition), this single question might - _could,_ as Hellingly would want it - lead the new trio to the events the second, more amateurish premonition prattled on about. _Eleven, eleven, eleven,_ it said. _Eleven _began with this question:

"So is it his or mine?"

A furret escaped the question by slipping through the tight space between Quilt's shelter and the food storage. Slipping through it didn't lead anywhere, but her tribe had long accepted that no path did. One might move down another, or hop to the side partway through, but a nomad accepted every sundown that destination is luxury, destination is holy. Death posed as one destination, absolute happiness another, the latter potential and the former common and imminent. Could she tell which one leaping through the space would eventually lead to, and if happiness would be passed by? She had no idea that Glee, who would roar away at Clement in a few minutes, already predicted this: she was the fourth grave to the right. Though all she had was malaise and a bad situation on her paws at the time.

While the not-knowing went on and the path-choosing occurred, he intercepted her. A distraught furfrou, named Quilt in this circle of nomads, had navigated his own way around the tents. He stooped down into the novice hunting pose she taught him. He had every right to threaten her if he only could. Quilt was so handsome that his silky fur muffled all of the menace he put out. A girafarig, talked about for his 'patented cure-all' tree bark remedies and jesting, started on his jeering routine. He quickly caught on, though, taking a whiff of the tensity.

He gaped, shocked. Now in the open, the altercation had aired out its stench, drawing in the nomads with the time for scandal like flies. The repugnance grew too unbearable to be ignored because the furret had allowed it to ferment - an accident she regretted, for delicate Quilt's sake.

"I'll be damned," the girafarig said. "Wells, you actually did it?" Accursed to stupidity be, that age-old nomadic ideal: _name your whelp by the camp, and they'll live by the camp_. A name should be lived up to, in Wells's opinion. Her tribe was the last to live beyond Solace or its outposts, however, so her opinion really couldn't matter.

Decades had taught the girafarig a tactfulness akin to hammering nails, so he at least lived up to his name. Might as well take himself yelling into a cave of zoobat, for all the good his blurt did. Murmurs surfaced as the lingering dozen in camp poked their noses around the food store. Luckily, she counted twenty nomads absent for the show: five pokémon who foraged the emptying forest for sustenance, and another fifteen who had departed on a quest to get medicine for Fence. A rare dull animal slithered in between the leather flaps of Fence's shelter, whispering death's secrets to the watchog through its venomous teeth. He was in a sickbed the day after, where enough venom to kill a deer in minutes would war against the pokémon for months to come. A pokémon, especially a warrior like Fence, could restart himself again and again, miraculously stalemating the venom incumbent in his body. But his heart was too weak for gathering... among _other things._

It devastated her - the leader of the gatherers not only bedded by a dull animal, but also a few hours before he bedded _her_. She feverishly considered once whether Quilt had somehow adapted to the serpentine allure of this dull animal, the _snake, _and poisoned the gatherer. A fatal attraction, he was. Because she sobbed in Quilt's warmth until he, for that night only, took initiative and insisted on calming his 'wife'. And then... Nails be damned, she actually accepted - actually _did it_.

But none of this thinking reared its harried head. "Shut up, Nails," she said instead._  
_

"But you actually took Rope's offer? I thought we were just joking around the fire, y'know, noncommittal stuff..." the words pricked her ears like tiny nails. Worsened her headache.

"Obviously not. Your parents should have named you Pothole - your ears are flooded with shit." A few of the nomads laughed nervously. Nails backed away wisely.

And then the cycle she nearly escaped started again.

"Is it _his_," Quilt said tremulously, "or is it... _mine?" _Oh how his silky voice covered her ears like her birthing blanket and fought back the prickling of Nails's words. Oh, it made her tremble and swoon, like Fence, riddled with venom. _Keep strong_ her inner voice screamed. _Don't let him woo you. _Being sought after so hungrily, as Quilt did it, could make one feel all-important. A princess who deserved more than a rotten campsite. Bless him. Bless the impossible he achieved. _  
_

She somehow whispered. "I don't know." If it was his, the child came late. Otherwise, early. "But it doesn't matter none to you, anyhow. You're not going to be..." she had to work herself up to it. If only the Isle hadn't Dimmed, if only Harmony still allowed pokémon like Quilt. "You're never going to be her dad, Quilt." Sickeningly enough for Wells, she expected a clamor of approval from the crowd. And likable as Quilt was, she got it. They recognized Wells's sagacity and strengthened her resolve - for the village's future depended on not giving this anomaly a chance to dazzle them all. If they became as cloyingly precious as Quilt, they'd hardly survive a week. He was a plague as real as any rot or venom a nomad might contract.

He looked away and blinked out crystalline tears. They were beautiful, but Wells swore that a single drop would leave her like Fence, drooling and seizing. "You broke your promise to me. When you laughed at me back then, I should have known. L-look how far I traveled this year just to be yours. To give you our child. You saw me as a novelty once, so I threw away my title to be a nomad. For you. Anything always for my love. A-and you broke vows nary a week after we finally consummated our marriage. Is this how a savage repays those hearts they claim?!"

"Do you have any sort of pride? Stop saying that _I _claimed _you!_ Raise your maw and be a male!" _Please come and get me,_ she begged. _Just act harshly for tradition's sake. _

"You _di-ii-d,_" he pined in his poetic voice. "You stole me away - mine own body and soul! You stole it away savagely, monstrously, for the sake of gathering it to flaunt. To contest in juried exhibition, these pains you strike upon your stays in Solace! _Sa-aa-vages,_" he sung as a crashing note between a whine and a roar. "If you accepted me without informing me of your savage intent, Wells, you may as well never accepted me at all. So much for these close-knit notions you imbibe in your victims. It's all fake. None of you love me. No one loves me, no one ever will see my eyes lit with love, because my heart is now a deformity, b-because of you, Wells!"

Nails, backed against a tree, now found his animated tail nibbling furiously at its bark. The tail's owner started to pant furiously. In fact, Wells noticed that most of the nomads in camp had suddenly stopped clamoring in her approval. They went over to the furfrou's defense like thin branches in the breeze.

Without warning, the panting girafarig stepped forward, alien determination in his eyes. "No! We love you, I love you, I'll fix your broken heart. W-with my medicine and my affection, I'll fix your broken heart!"

"No," a voice called, "allow me!"

"Stay away, I was the only other he set eyes upon. He wants me - you want me, Quilt? Say it for me, _I want you._"

"You can have us all," another insisted suddenly. "We'll make you chieftain of the tribe." Arceus help them all; many concurred. That'd be plenty strange for the twenty absent nomads to return to. A tribe ruled by Quilt. Wells wanted to laugh. Male or female, young or elder... no one except the furret seemed to have any immunity to the furfrou. The infernal pokémon pretended to be skittish, scraping his paws in the dirt.

"O-oh I don't know," he said deviously. "I'm not sure of being chieftain, b-but it pleases me to hear you really do accept me."

Nails grinned like an idiot and shook his head. "No way, we're all happy to have you be chieftain! Accept us into your life, Quilt, and we will serve you!"

_Seriously? Serve him?! _She asked, appalled at the shift. _Is this an imbued power? Is this how he gets his way? Arceus, its working over me, tickling every emotion I've ever had... how long has he done this to me, alone?_ Anger consumed her better senses. It made it easier to resist. She howled with every bit of her lungs, calling her tribe to attention.

"Yes, you are one of us - you went through our ritual - but you're not a _good_ nomad. Forest's dangerous, so my mate has to be capable. Which you're very _far_ from, if you're as dumb as Nails and hadn't noticed. There are those days when you still ask me for help, _and it's embarrassing!_" Her last few words pitched into a scream. The furfrou backed away, and he knew that raising her voice finally defeated him. She had somehow freed her tribe from their crippling guilt. They looked around, embarrassed, asking _what in the hell just happened to us?_ She was a true hero. The only potential chieftain in camp that day was Wells, and they saw it come out right then. "Your body and soul are both shit! I don't want 'em!"

One of the elder pokémon of the tribe, a purugly who had managed to avoid professing her undying love, spoke. "Go easy on him," she purred. The elder purugly had once advised her to move fast on finding a new mate - before the furfrou clouded her better judgment. _Happy now? _Yes, the fattened elder was just ecstatic to see her work. A pride filled every morsel of her fat body, pride for her greedy advice's payoff: one lovely tragedy starring Wells's jilted lover. "He's a romantic little noble. Push him too much and he'll kill himself, either vying for your favor or in his misery. I've seen both from these rich outsiders." Jealousy tinted her words, but they still rung true. They stung true, despite that disgusting undertone. "Vanity is in his nature." _It's unnatural for a purugly like myself to be left unclaimed._ "And the Isle punishes all vice it smells in its Dimmed wilds." _It punishes furfrou who have the audacity to choose youth before beauty. _

At _its Dimmed wilds_, the gatherers returned. Wells tensed up and Quilt slumped down. They couldn't have arrived at a worse time for the two; Rope the blitzle, her replacement, came dashing to the rescue. He dropped his berries and small kills - rabbits and other dull animals - to assume a combative place in front of the furret. Streaks of reddened dirt lined his frazzled sides and neck. Quilt was a white prince, Rope was a born knight. She gently wrapped her paws around the blitzle to quickly stomp out any further arguing. All these words Quilt spat out would do nothing for them. It was sad to see him try.

The gatherer inspected the caress and nodded wisely. "She chose her and her children's lives," Rope said with finality. The other gatherers encircled him, backing their leader. "I've rightfully claimed her - promises will never extend to outsiders, Quilt."

The crowd dispersed knowing that it was all over. Also because they were afraid of the furfrou attempting to enslave them again. Rope's words were as good as a death sentence for the furfrou. The shocked pokémon sat there, disbelieving - four years of courting ending like this... she accepted _marriage._ Did that mean nothing to savages?

No one gave much notice as Quilt dashed out of the camp's clearing into the forest, a gatherer's bag in tow. _Give him time,_ they all thought, going about their business. _It's just another lesson for him. Like fishing or gathering. _None of them seriously considered the purugly's warning. Rope herded his mate away from the place while she did remember. Being strengthened by her tribe dulled the pain. She wondered wistfully if she should follow in her usual way, just to protect him. Just to be safe. Perhaps get away from the camp for a bit._  
_

Rope nudged her stomach and made a passing comment about how close she was. It _sounded_ passing, when really Rope knew exactly what he was implying: _let the grownup furfrou fend for himself_. _You are expecting any day now._ She chose to leave Quilt alone. For the pup that may be Rope's. Or _his_. What unnatural creature had developed inside of her? Would it seize her mind like Quilt had?

A roar sounded in the distance, an occasional sound whenever the nomads stayed in the forest. It was too far to decipher its pitches, too far to truly understand it.

"Wonder what that Relay's roaring about now?" Nails asked jokingly. "Wonder if he saw _that_ business coming... _this is called,_" he mimicked, mouth agape._  
_

"_The furret who slept around!"_

"_Shut up_, Nails." Rope laughed heartily and nudged Wells. "Let's rest an hour, then frolic. By the time we go frolicking he'll be back, sobbing his woes to any nomad willing to listen." _Better warn him about that sobbing, _Wells thought. _Or we might wake up to an army of our lovestruck friends...__  
_

She was chieftain in spirit. She would deal with it herself, when the time came. "Really, you think so?" She asked doubtfully. "Herb told me that-"

"Two kinds of pokémon, Wells: some gain wits as they age, some lose them, and Herb's the worst case I've ever seen. I give Quilt five minutes of running until he finds a place to perform a sobbing _sollo-key_, or whatever." The blitzle did a mock-bow at the flap of the gathering tent after noticing her lingering concern. "Does my mate still desire nobility? Here goes:_ Fair madam_, I yearn to hear my child kick in her mother's below-bosom. Very well. Mine own child, and thous and such."

Wells laughed gently. Inside though, she did her best to resist screaming with frustration. _Nothing will ever feel as fantastic as Quilt. I would have reached complete happiness, if it weren't for the black ocean around us. Thank you, Isle of 'Light'. Now I'll know it yet never get it. Unless... _there was always nighttime, and Quilt owned a tent by himself. And today only proved that she could resist his long-term 'commitments' without consequence. She smiled falsely at what she needed, truly at what she wanted. A chieftain knows how to use body and mind to get their way.

"On my way, m'lord."

Towards the end of their hour of rest arrived Glee's premonition, clutching the boneheaded Nails outside. Ferals flooded the camp, Wells cawed in a very not-chieftainly manner, and Quilt - her lover - was nowhere to be found. _The Almost Lover_ came into fruition. "The premonitions always come true," Glee had said to his brother. So it was.

* * *

But where had her happy ending gone off to? An hour earlier, the other 'almost lover' had stolen a gatherer's bag with a childish ritual in mind. The ritual is called _proving oneself, _and his father, with every one of the nomads, would have agreed that it was _about time._

Those predicted five minutes of running ended for Quilt when he slammed into the side of a fallen tree. The world shook as the blow jarred him, sending him to the ground with a yelp. In an instant he had sprung up furiously. A small cut on the top of his head pinned down a tuft of fur before blooming with scarlet.

"_Ooh, _I hate her!" He decided on it. Swore by it. He made his own _damn it _chant while he paced about the log, hoping his head would stop throbbing. What a dumb female. He _hated her, damn it, hated her, damn it, hated her!_ When it became obvious the head wound was there to stay, he doubled on the tantrum-throwing: **_hatedherdamnithatedherdamnithatedherdamnit..._** He hoped to drown out the pain he felt. It'd have been easier to grab some cloth from the gatherer's bag, to press against the wound that splashed tiny dots of red onto the tree. But for Quilt, practicality meant simple, whereas he found himself grand. What with seeking thrills with nomads or finding true love with a savage furret, bandages seemed a little petty for his great broken heart. Only after a minute of painful yelling did he finally resort to the cloth and somber blubbering.

"_Ooh, _I love her," he moaned. "I g-gave her all she asked for: the manners, the scarves and gifts, the thrill of being courted, a lovely little marriage... and she still went and got claimed! _Ooh_, life is not fair! _Ooh, _Arceus, your heart is full of worms!" _Ooh,_ he howled again as a branch caught his attention. It looked like... the stout leg of a blitzle. "You conniving _bastard, _you cheated! You ruined her hopes when I was not looking! You made her _scared... _do you love your camp so, Rope? _I will hamstring you and make you rooted to it!_" His sharp canines (even prissy, noble pokémon could have sharp teeth) dug into the wood, furiously. He tore apart the leg of his father, Rope, Wells, Herb who had smiled smugly at him... he tore apart the world and almost felt good enough to stick his maw up - as Wells told him to - and return. Things became blurry as time moved on, paying no heed to the furfrou and his petty rage. All faded to black, as if he dove eyes-open into the Black Sea.

And, eventually, he returned from the black, an hour of his life gone.

All he knew, at first, was that the tree branch had started to hit back. _h__ard. _He felt it deal more damage to him than his foray with the tree ever caused. Then he knew that _there _had turned into _elsewhere_, whereas _elsewhere_ felt like a tent pole tried to find a notch in his neck. Then he tasted the coppery thickness running down his tongue, and he knew that his teeth were buried in something _not wood _but a gamy, meaty thing he recalled from Delibird's Eve - a holiday he celebrated before running off with the nomads. He'd have investigated first and discovered that it was a _deer, _if he hadn't been busy fighting the bucking monster.

_Oh, Arceus,_ he thought, horrified. _I have attacked Rope in a blind rage._ An absence of protests told him otherwise. Plus, he was winning, and that told him more than enough. Then he knew all that mattered: warblers struck a blood-boiling vibrato close enough to a chorus of trumpeters, for this battle of battles - the ritual of _proving oneself _had suddenly begun! The idea released these strange feelings in him, making a noble more aware of the number of his teeth than their use, into a hunter. He nibbled up and down the beast's neck, searching for a place with less sinew and muscle - like Wells instructed. His own body screamed with exhaustion, his extended neck on fire from the beast's attack. Had he run a thousand miles before this? It felt like it, felt like his advantage slowly began to slim as his heart threatened to burst with smoldering fury.

In a short burst of strength, he howled and tore into the soft part he sought after. His teeth punched through the neck and he wrenched his jaw to the right, his jaw a key for the door to a whole new world. Quilt flung up onto his hind legs and wrenched down again, this time to the left. Both of their heads clunked into a tree he failed to notice, and both folded into the packed dirt beneath, and both fell eerily silent as the warblers in the tree hit the fall in their song, _mit ausdruck_.

Horror bubbled in him - after the blow, he could hardly find the strength to get up. If he saw the creature escape his clutches, he might never find the will to rise. The large stag he attacked, though, was too injured to continue his struggles. It bleated wordlessly at his attacker. Dull eyes of waning life expressed surprise at being killed by an inept pokémon, a look which absolved Quilt of his guilt in a solution of petulance. He grounded his forepaws into the thing's wound to speed up its death. To teach it what the son of Harmony's formerly esteemed _aidele_ could do. It gasped a last time, defeated. _You proved your point_, the lifeless features told him.

At first glance it seemed as though Quilt found himself to be a monster. In truth, he felt monstrously _good _about the kill. No one could ever treat him like a novelty again. He had killed a stag!

_Look at me now, _he desired to yell at Wells. _I am not quite so soft as you thought. Though I cannot recall how, I stalked and killed this dull animal. Would you love some deer, Wells? I can roast it in Harmonic style - beware my love, rabbit may not compare to my cooking, you will be lifted to never come down. I can salt the meat and save it until we migrate to the plains, to harvest the greens. We will use the hide for a fanciful bag you once told me you dreamed of owning. Look at me, I am capable, I am..._ if he had been anything other than a pokémon, had anything other than a naturally rough hide, Quilt would have been on the ground with an expression of surprise, a stag's antler driven through his neck - long prior to returning from his blackness. As it was, the wound troubled his breathing. Quilt wheezed calmly. _Do not stress it, brave hunter. You'll be fine in minutes and a champion within the hour. _He had a gatherer's bag. After recovering, he could drape the kill over his back and tie it up using _rope_ - he shuddered at that word. He would press his nose into bark and snort, until he could follow his own scent home - which would be too familiar otherwise.

But the plans he laid and considered best, withstood only so much silence. The lack of fanfare from the warblers enervated Quilt to the point of awareness where even he, a poetic supporter of wins over winnings, understood the victory meant nothing.

Then his ears bore through the thrums of battle and his aching head. He froze and shivered at what he had been missing, seemingly just a few tree lengths away. Roars, shouts, both sentient speak and growl speak breaking through the vale of his small clearing. It made Quilt's fight sound like an altercation over who was _it _in a game of tag.

Reality only got worse. The sounds came closer and, at the crescendo of their cries and yelps, suddenly burst into Quilt's clearing with explosive force. A lairon slowly soared through the air, the most surreal sight Quilt had ever seen. It kicked its stout legs lazily, as if doggy-paddling, all the way into a tree on the other side. A hairline crack went rippling up the tree, then it became deeper, and eventually the entire short thing fell into three equal pieces. Coming in behind him was a hulking ursaring, claws trying to reduce the combusken on his back into a mouthwatering filet with a single swipe. A sallow claw burrowed into the giant's armpit, its owner dangling uselessly as he tried to get his cleaner claw into the ursaring's back. And just when Quilt thought it couldn't get any more unreal, then a shaymin (t_hat's the Relay the nomads talk of, _he realized dimly) yipped and nipped at the ursaring's feet, bloodying them with tiny cuts it couldn't even feel.

Two of the shattered tree's segments dangled in the air, tangled in the low, thick branches of its older brethren. The third missed the ursaring by inches and toppled onto the lairon but didn't crush it. It shrugged it off lazily. Those two swinging pieces angled at the ursaring and combusken, their jagged points ready to give them record-breaking splinters. The bear staggered to side, though, and wound up standing right over the furfrou. Quilt looked up into its fiery eyes.

All things considered, Quilt oddly wanted to laugh. Couldn't the Isle give him a _minute_ of satisfaction? Compared to the stag, this was mean business. This ursaring's claws were already descending, a death-blow on its mind.

Then he regained his wits and shrieked.


	4. 4: Moving Back

**The Dimmed Isle**

**-Four-**

**==Moving Back==**

Clement rolled to his feet and jostled his steel plates, guaging their durability. Nothing had broke on him, as he expected - in fact, he discovered something very pleasing when his head collided with the tree. A sort of innate state of collision, maybe borne from a natural desire to rampage. His body concurred by heating him up, making another run at the ursaring irresistible. Or would have been, but the Explorer's screeching convinced him to gain more than just his bearings.

_Whoa! _It yelled, mingling its excitement with its terror. _I-I'm not a flight-compatible spirit. You've gotta shut me off before you take off like that, or warn me - Christ! _It had been a tad sudden, to the Explorer's credit: the lairon saw an opportunity and took it, aiming to crush into the bear's chest. Perhaps throw off his breathing, render him less capable of lacerating the embarrassment of a shaymin licking at his feet. He hadn't a lot of experience fighting ferals and underestimated the ursaring's skill. He certainly didn't expect to find his flight path redirected into a small clearing. And, beyond the first surprise, the shrieking furfrou lying just a few feet away. _Is he singing or shrieking?_ the Explorer asked. It was a good question; he struck a fantastic pose below the ursaring, splayed out in the most helpless, evocative way Clement could imagine. If the lairon was an artist, he'd see an inspiration. As an once-feral, though, he understood that the furfrou was an idiot trying to die in style.

_And he's about to get a helluva sendoff, _the Explorer noted raptly. _They all are._ Hellingly recalculated faster than Clement thought possible. He readjusted his attempts to kill the feral the instant he saw the furfrou. Judged positions, weighed priorities, spotted weaknesses, Hellingly did it all. Even so, some situations simply couldn't be won; by trying to blind the ursaring instead of maim it, the combusken became the victim of a vicious choke-slam. It took Glee every ounce of speed in his small frame to avoid the feral, who had transformed his brother into a blunt weapon. The other claw preoccupied itself with pinning the furfrou to the tree. The handsome shriek cut off into a gurgling yelp. And, if only to prove his dominance over them all, he brutally kicked the Relay. He flew into a nearby tree with such velocity, the tree had seemingly stopped Glee from going on a round-trip around the world. With a woody scraping noise, the shaymin slowly slid down the tree's cracked bark, crumpled horribly before he came to rest on the ground. The Explorer shook violently within Clement's mind. _T-that was straight out of a Sunday cartoon..._

Hearing the shaymin's agonizing screech rebooted the giant machine that was Clement the lairon. He snorted out the snot of his cold. It was as if the air-traffic controllers in his mind cleared each of his limbs to engage their target again. The other two could have hurt the feral. Glee, though? He must have known, known that the pup was just trying to play hero. Maybe it was too similar to how Clement sneezed on him, ruining his dream, or... _Arceus, _Clement's fury had to come from somewhere.

He rocketed forward, streaking through the air with a deftness atypical for a lairon - or as the feral foolishly assumed. The bear simultaneously prepared to enjoy the furfrou's weakening struggles and resist the lairon's attack. He lazily flung the bashed combusken off to the side. The grass peeled back as the Drawl flew across it in a backwards tumble.

Free claw lowered, he planned to feel up the softer underside he knew Clement had. No tricks this time, though: Clement drove his hind legs upwards into a sidelong body slam, planting dents into the grassy clearing with his leap. In an instant, Clement laid sideways across the ursaring's buckled knee, his claw pinned uselessly in the fat padding his knee joint. Its back formed an agonizing _C, _its left arm and left leg so helplessly conjoined, they might as well have been welded at birth. This also freed the furfrou, who by that point laid against his stag. A glazed look shaded his face and red lines streaked his neck.

Then Hellingly shocked Clement twice in the same battle. Apparently the lairon had only imagined the bashing the combusken underwent. The way he descended on the ursaring's exposed neck with his good claw didn't even show a smidgen of fatigue. It also told Clement that the fight was done; the ursaring roared a final time as Hellingly did a dance he long memorized the steps to. Claw to throat, throat... made to no throat.

A long streak of red lined where the combusken wiped his claw before running to Glee's aid. The whelp screamed, scared out of his wits at the kick he endured. The combusken scooped up the shaymin and hugged him tightly, consoling him. The energy that lit the Relay's eyes, albeit terror, meant that he would be just fine.

"A-ah! _Brudder_, I think my spine _mied_ be broken or, or..." Clement's heartstrings were strong, not easily plucked, but Glee's tiny impediment made him a little nauseous. _Brudder, I spilled the milk, Brudder it's my turn with the toy, _or even _I scraped my leg, brudder;_ each were miles more appropriate for such a pokémon.

"Oh, shush," the brother said, chuckling a little. It was as if he hadn't killed a moment before. No lingering, no dwelling. He revealed his own damage, which made him pant hoarsely, but hid it just well enough for a child to miss. "If your spine was broken, you'd know."

"I _didd'id_ know he could k-kick backwards like that." He curled up and embraced his protector. "My spine's broke, _brudder_!" he sobbed.

Hellingly smiled a haggard smile. "Well, I know a miracle cure."

"Really?"

"Stay still now." He lowered his beak to Glee's stomach, exhaled and shook his beak back and forth. The recipient squealed - first in surprise, then in an attempt to hold in laughter. Hellingly drew back quickly to see the laughter, likely wanting to steal some of it for himself. "Hey!" He chuckled and tried the cure again. Glee squirmed furiously, his spine perfectly fine. "Hey! I said no moving. You're spine's going to be broken forever if you can't stay still."

Glee howled happily. "No fair, you're tickling me! This miracle cure sucks eggs! Don't tickle me in front of the Listener, hehe- ha! S-stop..."

_So this is how they get along, _the Explorer mused. _Day to day... god, can you imagine it? _Clement started - the Explorer's presence had evaporated for a moment during the second tackle. _Yes, I'm still here, you lout. Are you fit enough to check on the furfrou, or do you need a dose of Hellingly's tickles to set you right? _Something in Clement wished he could experience such a thing. _Oh, piddly and sentimental doesn't fit you at all. This really does touch you, though, huh?_

If the Explorer expected an answer, he didn't insist on getting it. Over by the ursaring's corpse he spotted the furfrou staggering around. The handsome creature might have once been groomed. Now he looked as though he dove into a bed of roses, down a hill, and right into a muddy pit filled with barbs. Regardless, the furfrou unconsciously fixed himself, swiping at the cuts across his neck. He soon had them equidistant and similar in shape. The bloodily matted hair on top of his head pricked back up.

"Thank you," he coughed. "I desperately wanted to be involved in your... altercation. Could you not have picked another clearing?"

_Ask for his name. I wanna know his name._ Still a pestering nuisance, yet the violent fight had placed a damper on its desire for adventure.

_No,_ Clement replied. _He'll tell us anyway._

Lo and behold: "Are you waiting for me to introduce myself? My name is Quilt, and it would only be polite to answer for my wounds. Or explain what you just put me through." He was doubtlessly shaken by the ordeal. Politeness, a very unexpected thing for clement, prevented him from becoming a deal more vulgar."

Hellingly stood up, registering Quilt's decency. With his good claw he gave an awkward curtsy. "Hello, sorry. I know who you are."

_Wow, does he have a way with words. You two might be equally antisocial. Bottom of that barrel is a lot wider than the top, I suppose. _If both Clement and the Explorer noticed, Quilt must have. But he pretended like it was just fine. And the combusken's accent was perfectly decipherable.

"It's hard to deny that claim, considering I told you seconds ago. Quilt, from the Last Nomads."

"You're the late party planner's son. I remember when you were Glee's age - during the Harmony March."

Whatever Hellingly said made Quilt double back. He hid an appalled look. "_Party planner?_ Are you... an Atlasan? I thought they meant the Relay's brother _fought _like an Atlasan. Not that he is one of... those pokémon." Brief anger lidded his eyes before it simmered into playful condescension. "May I talk to the Relay, instead? Your accent is tiring to sift through - but keep at it, sentient speak is a hard language to grasp. You will wrap your head around it one of these days."

_Ha! Here we are, milling around a dead giant's body, and he finds the time to be snide._ Hellingly's neutrality spun on the spot, becoming a sort of guilty, shy mush. The bigotry made Clement feel upset -he really did like the furfrou before the sudden shift. _Chin up, Clement. Nationalism means that this Isle isn't all forests and murder. __  
_

"I saved your father's life in the March." If it was a battle instead of a conversation, Hellingly would be stumbling about blindfolded. That wasn't going to change anyone's mind, or reverse the years of feuds which apparently spurred this encounter.

"You will not bribe my favor with things you did years ago. Especially if it was only my _father_ you saved._" _Glee attempted to step in for his brother, but the furfrou interrupted him. "What are you doing out here? You should find a new protector. It is a relief to see you alive after these two dragged you out here to face monsters. I will leave that to you, though. I have a fair female's affection to win. Oh!" He turned to the Atlasan and smiled politely. "You must not be used to the idea of respecting a female's choice."

Hellingly stepped forward to handle Quilt his way, but Glee intercepted. He shook his head slowly, somberly. Then he turned to Quilt. "I received a message."

"Better quit chatting me up and do it... then." He looped the rope around the stag and lifted it. He sniffed one last time at the ursaring, shook his head, and walked around it.

"...It's a-about the Last Nomads. T-they said-"

"No. I was there an hour ago. We are alright."

"My premonitions come true."

"Yours are as imminent as an oceandrinker's premonitions. Stop speaking to me."

_He's too witty,_ Clement thought. _Too witty not to know already. _No matter how many words Glee used to paint a picture for Quilt, the furfrou would spin a new lie for himself. _Words are trumpery; he has to see for himself. _Hellingly spoke lowly to Glee, though he wanted to be speaking to Quilt: an hour ago, he noted, ferals were not this far into the forest. "If A heavy ursaring's out here," he whispered, "there's no doubt a Punishment formed... or the Black Ocean has spawned more ferals." His eyes widened slightly, and he shot up. "Come back!" He called. "We're all in danger!"

But the furfrou had already dropped his stag and left.


End file.
